Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Chris Barnes on the missing link between high performance and financial freedom

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, Freedom Fighters. If I handed you your dream portfolio today, would you have the energy and the nervous system to actually enjoy it? Or would you be sitting there with a beautiful balance sheet and a body that feels like it's been through a bushfire? Because this episode is your mission-critical secret sauce that almost no property or investing podcast ever talks about, your biology. And today we're joined by Chris Barnes, an epigenetic health strategist and we're unpacking why so many property investors are financially disciplined but biologically blind. You'll hear why stress and anxiety might not be a character for but worrying that you can actually do something about. And you'll understand why doing all the

Starting point is 00:00:47 right things still doesn't work if they're not the right things for you. And why Chris believes that genetic testing should be as common as getting a blood test because it's your blueprint that allows you to drive everything else. Now, this special episode sits at the bridge between the W and the E of our property wealth clock, where W is your Y. And if you're new here, make sure you circle back to episode 414,

Starting point is 00:01:15 released late in December last year, titled Living by Design Part 1, so that you can start at the beginning and then follow the complete end-to-end six-step cyclic process over the course of the year that will allow you to join the rarefied ranks of the top 5% of investors who achieve true sustainable success and financial freedom. And today we start to bridge across to the E for examine.

Starting point is 00:01:40 So no more guessing and no more she'll be right because now we start to inspect the key components of all of your capacity engines. So if you are serious about achieving sustainable success and financial freedom with the health span that will allow you to achieve it and then be healthy enough to actually enjoy it long term, then make sure you stay with us. And make sure you stay to the end where Chris drops a very simple start this Monday challenge that will help you to make it happen. Plus a very special bonus for those of you that are ready to actually start taking action and building your preventative wealth and your health.

Starting point is 00:02:19 So let's get invested. Welcome to Get Invested on the Property Hub podcast channel, the leading weekly show for Australians who want to learn how to unlock their full self, health and wealth potential. I'm your host, Bushy Martin, and each week I go deep with the best investors, experts, leaders and founders to find out what it takes to break free from the grind, discover freedom and to live by design. Subscribe now and join me and get invested in the life that you really want. Let's get started. Hi, Freedom Fighters. Are you building a property portfolio or building a pressure cooker? Are you chasing financial freedom while quietly losing your health freedom? And if you're brutally honest with yourself, are you successful outwardly,

Starting point is 00:03:07 but on the inside, you're relentlessly tired, foggy, snappy, and struggling to survive on intravenous caffeine and grit because here's the truth that no one puts on a glossy brochure you can have the best strategy the best suburb the best spreadsheet but if yourself and your health are cooked your wealth plan will eventually cover to you because here on get invested you'll hear me bang on about sustainable success being the integration of what i call the three elves of self health and wealth where yourself is your beliefs your identity your expectations your mindset and the story that you tell yourself. Your health is your happy habits, daily disciplines and rewarding rituals around your sleep, diet, movement, recovery, your nervous system and your

Starting point is 00:03:54 resilience. And these two are fundamental to attaining and maintaining your wealth which is your assets, the engine room that buys back your time and your choices. And these aren't three separate buckets, they're three interlocking rings because if you pull one apart the whole thing fools on the floor. And I learned this lesson very early. I grew up with a classic Aussie model of success. And that was about work hard, don't whinge, keep going, and she'll be right. And that was based on my dad, who was my role model, and he was an absolute seven-day-a-week worker-holic. He was as tough as nails, his heart was in the right place, and he was always providing for us. He believed his job was to build our security first, and then enjoy life later.

Starting point is 00:04:41 But the body always holds a score, and we're about to find that out, because in his late 50s, his health absolutely collapsed. He suffered bowel cancer and multiple strokes. And the last decade of his life? Well, he didn't lose it in one dramatic moment. He lost his freedom in slow motion. He was paralysed down one side, spent his time in a wheelchair with mum as his full-time carer. And this is not just a sad story, it's a warning label. because I see versions of this pattern everywhere.

Starting point is 00:05:15 Smart, capable, driven Australians smashing it in business, smashing it in property and smashing their goals. All while quietly shortcutting the very machinery that they need to enjoy it all. And here's the uncomfortable bit. You can build the perfect portfolio

Starting point is 00:05:31 and still run out of time to enjoy it. And that's a shocking return on investment. Now, I'm going to keep this tasteful and practical and none of what we're about to talk about today is medical advice and we're not diagnosing anyone. But what we are doing today is lifting the lead on something that's critical that most high achievers ignore. What if your stress, your anxiety, your always-on nervous system

Starting point is 00:05:56 isn't just personality? What if it's biology? And what if instead of pushing harder, you could understand your blueprint and optimise from the inside out? Because sustainable success isn't about compounding capital It's about protecting the vehicle that's meant to drive it Which brings us to today's very special guest Chris Barnes is an epigenetic health strategist

Starting point is 00:06:21 And a certified epigenetic performance coach Who works with high performing executives and entrepreneurs Who look strong on paper but fill the cracks underneath He's analysed over 500 genetic reports He's spoken on stage with the likes of Dave Asprey and Wim Hof. He's been featured in Men's Health and is a keynote speaker at the International Mental Health Conference. But what I respect most about Chris is that he bridges the gap between ambition and biology, between performance and longevity, between drive and durability.

Starting point is 00:06:59 And we're doing this because it's not some fluffy wellness chat. This isn't a performance conversation, a sustainability conversation. So welcome, Chris, and let's get invested. Thank you, Bushy. Amazing to be here, mate. Mate, I've been looking forward to this for quite some time, Chris. You're delving into an area that a lot of people just don't put a lot of thought to. They take it for granted.

Starting point is 00:07:24 But there's probably a lot listening right now who don't know much about you. So I guess to kick things off for anyone who's new to your work, Can you give us a quick rundown on what you do differently, who do you help, and why do you do what you do, Chris? Sure. I specifically help really busy men and women, generally in their mid-40s and 50s, just better understand their unique biology so that they can have more energy, better navigate how to eat right for their unique genetic needs, rather than just guessing and following a

Starting point is 00:08:01 specific diet that is trendy but may actually be causing more harm than good down the line mate i get to the the root of those needs we take so much of the guesswork out and the amazing thing is that it's it's based on your own biological needs not just this one overarching umbrella approach that's good for most people it's it's based on what you need so it's so powerful And I see it day in, day out in the coaching clients that I work with and the genetic reviews, the type of transformation that can occur when you start to meet these needs consistently on a daily basis. Yeah, I love it. There's a lot we're going to unpack today that, again, I think people skim across the surface and there's a number of terms

Starting point is 00:08:49 that get thrown around on YouTube and all the podcasts these days, but a lot of people really don't get their head around them. Before we sort of start to do that, though, Chris, by the end of our conversation today, what do you want us to really feel, think or do differently? i want people to start investing in their health needs now and not wait for a sign or a symptom to flare up before they start to take accountability and start making those changes we we often have a very reactive approach to health in in life and i see it in in probably more so than not in in busy

Starting point is 00:09:31 professionals gets pushed to the side as a priority so i want people to to really identify and be aware that your future health starts today and we need to start doing the the small consistent things on a daily basis so that yeah in 10 or 15 years time you're not met with the fate that so many people do when they get that alarming scary news from the doctor or some it's even scarier they don't get that news and it's it's the time's up which is something that so many of us have been touched by and uh yeah so start investing now in your health yeah i love that mate i sort of want to start with a bit of your own story if we can and i've heard you say elsewhere that you've you've struggled with anxiety for most of your adult

Starting point is 00:10:20 life and that understanding your biological roots changed everything so can you sort of walk us through what that means for you and how that relates to us? I really thought that my anxiousness throughout business life, uh, public speaking, and it wasn't just normal anxiousness. It was crippling at times. Like I'd get up to perform in a specific situation and it's almost crippling, right? Like blank nervousness. That's not normal. And I thought it was a true personality trait of me. But then once I actually dived into genetics and biology, I could see that for me personally, I carried some significant genes that influenced stress hormones, neurotransmitter balance, so dopamine and the calming neurotransmitters like GABA

Starting point is 00:11:10 that can definitely make me more prone to stress and anxiety and anxiousness. And then combine that with a diet that was completely out of alignment with what I needed was actually making it worse. And that was eating certain types of foods that had synthetic vitamins in it, which make these variants function even worse. So I was, yeah, completely out of alignment with my diet and lifestyle and my genes and the symptoms, the expression of those symptoms were anxiousness stress inability to to wind down quickly from really stressful situations and it flowed into many aspects of like my my career and and just well-being as well like the more anxious you are the the slower you are to recover uh and and and to bounce back from stressful

Starting point is 00:12:02 events so understanding my blueprint allowed me to then eat in accordance with those which was powerful and then supplement with the types of nutrients I actually needed to balance my brain chemistry and to calm down that stress response. And then to also just always be mindful that I actually have to do the things to calm down my nervous system because I'm more prone to stress, so breath work and meditation. And not just because it's a very trendy thing to do, but because my biology actually needs this more than somebody else that can clear stress hormones better. So once you know those, you've got an instruction manual for you that just helps you thrive better. That was powerful for me because I spent 10 or 15 years of my younger years going

Starting point is 00:12:53 through uni, just dealing with what I thought was me, a defect in me, in my personality trait. I still would rise above that, but it was difficult. And now, like if I get up and I do a presentation, I still feel nerves and that's normal. You should still feel fear and nerves. And these are normal human biological senses and functions. But when they get to a point where the signals are so powerful that they're causing imbalance or in harmony in your system, you need to start to go, hey, something's off here. Dive into your biology, into your blood, into your genetics? Is there something here that at a deep root level is not geared to support what I'm trying to achieve here? And can I rebalance that? And the great thing is that with many of these

Starting point is 00:13:44 things, you can improve the expression of those genes epigenetically through the things that we do and can control. So exercise, sleep, breath work, food. And that's why I love genetics and I love epigenetics because, yeah, they go together perfectly. And often people that are struggling the most are either carrying severe genetic mutations or they might have normal genes, but their environmental signals are just causing issues as well. So it's important to note that even with good genetics, you can still make them express differently with poor habits.

Starting point is 00:14:26 Yeah, I love that. because there's a lot to unpack with what you just shared right there because a lot of people go, well, that's just how I am. Well, there's a little bit of that, but as you just mentioned there, the epigenetic environmental piece is really important. So how we're sleeping, how often we're sleeping, how we're breathing, the exercise we do, what we're putting into our bodies in various formats. And you know this way more than I, but from what I can gather,

Starting point is 00:14:54 having studied myself in a fair bit of detail in recent times has a massive impact on on how we feel so that that that stress piece and and the the other I think really important part of what I'm picking up from what you're sharing already is that we're all unique so we need to find our own particular blueprint blueprint that's not all in the same family therefore we're all the same I mean, there's so many variances in this overall system that we call ourselves that if we're not mindful of it and we just go, well, that's just me, and then just move on, if we go, well, no, we can make some improvements here with someone like you on the team to help them actually identify what those things are and what they can be doing differently, suddenly, like, look a whole lot better than what it actually is. So I love that. I want to sort of circle back a little bit now beyond the racing exercise, Chris, and get you to sort of give us a bit of a reader's digest time on how you'd gone from health and performance work

Starting point is 00:16:01 into the genetics and epigenetics and then focusing on working with high performers. Can you sort of take us through that journey? Sure. So my initial background was working in the health and fitness industry, personal trainer, gym owner for close to 15 years and yeah, learned the ins and outs of nutrition and body transformation. But towards the end of that, that kind of 12 to 13 year mark, I realized that there's still so much more to health and wellbeing than just going to the gym and training really well and and eating the right kind of balance of macros and i i feel the biggest catalyst for me to kind of deviate from that was losing my dad too young he was 65 but he first started to decline

Starting point is 00:16:56 in his mid-50s with brain cancer and then yeah died suddenly at 65 trying to get back into a healthy regime, retired, retired around 60 and very sedentary after that. And then, yeah, just died suddenly one day in activity. And it really rattled me and caused me to start to reassess human health in many different facets. So I went and studied further into naturopathic health and then further into genetics and epigenetics, I went across to one of the biggest health conferences in Austin, Texas, and met a really unique academy over there and a doctor that was teaching people to interpret genetics and understand epigenetics all around performance coaching.

Starting point is 00:17:48 And I hadn't really heard about genetics beyond, oh yeah, we have our DNA and our genes and it's our blueprint. and yes some people have risk genes for disease but nothing was focused on okay what's this preventative approach but not a not only preventative what happens if we're already in a good state of health how do we improve it beyond and and maximize our human potential so this academy was all around limitless health and potential based on understanding our unique genetic traits and then optimizing it and yeah I've been working in that space I sold the gym nearly three and a half four years ago and I've been focusing ever since just working with

Starting point is 00:18:33 high performers and I didn't start out focusing specifically on high performers I just felt that they were the ones that were seeking me out the most they were dealing with brain fog and low energy and at the time there was a really prominent um i would say influencer on on social media that was talking a lot about specific genes uh mthfr methylation and and it was really focused on brain chemistry and and these were the people that were seeking me out and and they're really proactive these were high performance and they knew that they had to do something to bring back their their brains to bring their their stress levels lower so i've just gravitated more into working specifically with high performers because this line of work is perfect to give them the

Starting point is 00:19:24 additional edge because many of them uh not all of them are struggling in that department some are already doing a lot of things really well and they just want to be better right so and that's the whole point of understanding your genetics and biology because you can always leverage it up often i'm i'm rebalancing from out of balance back to homeostasis but once you're there like we can take it further and and that just is only going to enhance longevity health span brain function better decision making hopefully better better wealth creation love it i absolutely love that uh so working uh in that group of and what i guess you i'm assuming you probably love about that is that you're working with people who are actually interested

Starting point is 00:20:08 in improving their own health through those mechanisms because they're always trying to improve probably every aspect of their life. In working with those, what pattern do you keep seeing with high performers, business owners, investors that is regular and perhaps scares you a bit? this is something i've observed quite commonly actually over the last couple of years and it's it's more in the people that are

Starting point is 00:20:40 already doing a lot of things really well and sometimes they get in their own way with with their healing and and sometimes they're trying to be so pedantic with improving health markers and and measuring everything and over analyzing things and and stressing too much about some of these things that they're actually creating another load of stress that they're not aware of. And then they wonder why things aren't improving or they're not shifting. So this is something I do see sometimes, uh, I need to just kind of strip it back and simplify it and say, okay, maybe we need to take less supplements. You don't need to be taking 50 supplements a day. And I'm all for measuring biomarkers, but sometimes like you can only measure

Starting point is 00:21:25 biomarkers so much and sometimes you just need to step back and and just do the consistent things on a day-to-day basis and focus on other things and not always being so pedantic on health i have seen in some people especially some people that might be out of balance they're focusing so hard on the imbalance or the problem that they're kind of clinging to it and limiting the potential for the healing to happen and it's often when they kind of just relax and surrender a bit and go back to just eating well and training well and doing some of the the foundational things that and take a bit of a mental angst and focus off things that they realize oh okay maybe i i got a bit too kind of focused on this problem i love it you just described me we're so uh so many people

Starting point is 00:22:19 bushy i'm sitting here listening to him go crikey that's exact because if you're a if you're if you are a perfectionist and you're a planner uh then you're always looking at cause and effect and you and you get you get down into the weeds with that stuff and you're absolutely right you you actually start creating stories in your own head that adds to the stress that you're actually trying to get rid of so uh and and i used to i used to rattle i've eased off now but i was taking 32 different Sullivan said, hey, from ATP to GABA at night to ID2000 for my gut to, you name it, I could list it off to the point of ridiculous. And you're right, if you're not just allowing it to flow a little bit and you're just monitoring

Starting point is 00:23:07 on the 2% that are wrong instead of the 98% that's right, then you can actually be compounding compounding the very thing you're trying to prove i love that on the other side of the equation though chris there's a lot of people who don't don't spend much time thinking about this at all and and you know if i talk about the property investment world where most investors inspect properties before buying but they don't spend any time inspecting themselves what why do you think that is? I think it's a hierarchy or a priority issue that we often put our wealth creation or our corporate duties ahead of our own health needs. And it's not until we are met with an issue that we finally kind of reprioritize that. I think human nature, we can quickly forget about ourself

Starting point is 00:24:02 and focus on all these other outputs until there's a pain large enough for us to act on those. And I would say that that's by far one of the biggest issues in men and women that are high achievers, that they're so dialed in to their businesses and their teams that they forget to eat well, they definitely forget to train, they forget to disconnect at night and sleep well enough and all these things start to throw their human biology out and lead to issues down the line that's why this type of conversation is so powerful because we want people to start to go hey the business the corporate the team they're not significant if your health deteriorates to the point where you can't function or worse so we need people to start focusing just on little things

Starting point is 00:24:55 every single day that are adding back the currency that we need for better energy lower stress levels better recovery from day-to-day wear and tear and this is something i see personally in the epigenetic testing that we do and aging relating to people's brains because people are so on these days that it's showing signs of aging in the brain and our brains use so much of our energy and And I know me personally, in the past, I was always on. And it wasn't until I realized I had to be off sometimes mentally. I'm like, oh, wow, this is what it feels like to just be out of my head and just resting and digesting.

Starting point is 00:25:36 And often people just never do that. They're always thinking of the next deal or the next property or, yeah, the next acquisition. so we need to just be more mindful of okay diet exercise sleep stress levels what are we doing on a daily basis to combat all these outputs all these energetic outputs what are we doing to to rebuild that cup yeah perfectly said because you're absolutely right the always on thing is It's sleep and rest and relaxation is almost treated as a nice-to-have rather than a must-do, which compounds the problem, obviously. Let's sort of jump into the genetics and epigenetics piece in a bit more detail then, Chris, because I've heard you say on a number of occasions that genetic loads the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger. Talk us through what that means and how that benefits us.

Starting point is 00:26:42 Yeah, absolutely. Simply, our genes are sections of our DNA, which are basically just instructions for our body, our biology to function. And then sometimes people carry slight genetic variations, which might make the function of that gene not as effective. And this can relate to anything from producing the right types of vitamins in their body to balancing the right types of neurotransmitters for good mood and focus or more anxiousness and depression, right along to everything from detoxification to the things that actually help us from aging, repairing DNA when it gets damaged. people are born with these from mum and dad but the issue is epigenetics which comes in from the environment the way that we behave eat sleep deal with stress it ultimately influences the gene so it can actually make a poor coding gene function even worse so you might already be genetically more susceptible to detox issues then you throw in too much alcohol to to smoking on a

Starting point is 00:27:55 Friday night, surrounding yourself with a lot of industrial chemicals. You work in that industry, so you're covered in chemicals every day. You don't realize that you're a poor detoxifier. Then, yeah, that's where they say the genes load the gun, the environment. So everything you're exposed to pulls the trigger because rarely is a gene the determining factor in health issues. When we actually look at it, genes themselves play maybe a small percentage of any chronic disease risk it's all diet and lifestyle and environmental and what they're doing so they're

Starting point is 00:28:30 basically turning genes up and down think of epigenetics as just the software that's driving the genes and heavily influenced by the things that we control on a daily basis or are exposed to that's why chronic stress and poor sleep is so bad for our genes yes bottom let's let's jump into the stress bit right now, because it's something that becomes a trap for investors in particular, because in property, the biggest mistakes are usually made under pressure. So what does chronic stress do to decision-making in this tolerance, not only for investors, but generally, as you say it? Well, we know that chronic stress reduces the size of our brains. It actually affects how our brains function, reduces executive decision

Starting point is 00:29:16 making. So if we're under a lot of stress, we're not going to be making clear decisions. We potentially could be making poor decisions. And I want to be clear that acute stress is actually healthy and we're designed to deal with acute stress, getting away from a threat, dealing with a big deal or acquisition. You want to be stressed. You want to get up there. It's going to prime you with more stress hormones, more dopamine. So generally you're going to be more switched on to make a great pitch or a deal but the issue is that this chronic low-grade stress that goes on and on we don't resolve and that can come from just poor night's sleep irregular blood sugars eating too much simple refined sugars that we're affecting stress stressing out our system

Starting point is 00:30:05 the biggest thing when you actually look at what stress does not only to the brain it really corrupts most of our physiology if it's not attended to and that just it speeds up the aging process and then we've got an age system we've got an age brain and we know that yeah under pressure it's not going to perform as a rejuvenated brain or the the brain of somebody with a lower cellular age yes absolutely right well that i mean that that that turns perfectly into my own situation chris because back in my mid-30s uh my all-consuming perfectionist work layers work i was meant that i actually ended up in divorce and uh and it was mainly because i was an absentee husband and father because it was all about work and i i ended up burning up broken and

Starting point is 00:30:58 broke so I call it the triple b that's certainly not a badge that you actually yeah want to be proud of and and after that season I got diagnosed with Hashimoto's which is you probably know it's an autoimmune thyroid condition so life was definitely throwing punches at me and I was learning very slowly that toughing it out just wasn't a health strategy at all so I actually took a lot of time then to do some detailed work and I mean real work so I got fit I cleaned up my diet. I spent a lot of time with a psychiatrist. I did a lot of deep reflection. I unpacked a lot of the shame and the self-blame that was attached to all of that and the I'm not good enough story that I kept telling myself. And for me, it tapped into some of that old worrying. So I had this

Starting point is 00:31:42 lifelong belief that I had to perform to be worthy and to be wanted. And there was the sort of reasons that that story got written so early was that I suffered chronic asthma as a kid and spent three to four days a week in bed, struggling to breathe. And the nervous system learned something pretty simple. And that was to always stay alert, stay on, to never be a burden and to never fail. So that became pretty much the hard wiring environmentally. And then fast forward to after my divorce, and I was lucky enough to meet my now partner in all things, Sonia and Ben for the first time was actually accepted and felt safe in the world, if you like. And for years after that, I thought, yeah, right, I've dealt with all that. And then comes along

Starting point is 00:32:31 COVID. And quite honestly, I felt like I was in the sweet spot of living the dream before COVID came in, because I was a bit active, bonding. I was living by design, as I keep saying in the podcast here but when COVID hit I was living in a I was locked down in in quarantine in Baranaring in the Mornington Peninsula and we're in a moldy rental at the time and my body started doing things I just couldn't out discipline so I developed rampant cascading inflammation and a whole bunch of autoimmune flare-ups so asthma returned after decades of nothing I started suffering uh psoriatic arthritis so aching joints tendons skin conditions high blood pressure, exercise-induced tachycardia, foggy brain. And as always,

Starting point is 00:33:17 as I sort of touched on earlier, my perfectionist tendencies went into fixed mode. So I did multiple blood tests, specialist supplements, breath work, acupuncture, meditation, the whole health buffet, if you like. And that's where I got really frustrated as I spoke to you off air, because every specialist was treating a slice, but no one was treating the system. So I felt a bit like whack-a-mole medicine, to be honest. And I got really sick of people managing the symptoms without actually understanding the cause. And that's really forced me to start looking at a much scarier question. And part of the reason why I say, can you get you on today? Then the question was, well, what if this isn't random? What if decades of relentless self-imposed

Starting point is 00:34:03 performance pressure and perfectionism and the hyper-responsibility that I felt and kept lifting the bar, have actually kept my nervous system in permanent chronic stress overdrive. So one of my biologies has been paying the price for a subconscious story that my mind learned years ago. And this is why I think this conversation is really important today in that context. And that brings us back to that genetics and epigenetics piece. So given that context, Chris, I guess what I'm sort of keen to dive into now is, you know, the testing I think is a really important part. You mentioned the blueprint a couple of times, and I think the blueprint's a really good term for it.

Starting point is 00:34:48 What does your foundational genetic testing actually show people that standard checkups like going to the doctor often miss that will help with this? we look at close to 111 really unique genetic snips those snips are the variations on those genes that cover many health systems so we don't just try and look at one gene and one reaction we want to get a picture of systems so detoxification methylation brain chemistry longevity genes to see if individuals are actually carrying variations in a number of different SNPs relating to those systems, which just gives us direction and clues into understanding that this person, for example, you mentioned a couple of really good things in that description of your health history, like being exposed to mold and autoimmune issues. We can see that, okay, if somebody's got

Starting point is 00:35:43 these detoxification gene variations and then also high risk or higher risk for increased inflammatory markers and then throw into it stress then they're possibly going to see more kickback from moldy environments where if they are living in a like a water damaged building that they might develop more chronic inflammation or SIRS chronic inflammatory syndrome that then leads to other autoimmune issues like Hashimoto's so many autoimmune issues kickstart with this chronic inflammatory response it could be rheumatoid arthritis or psoriasis and I see it in so many people that I work with I too have kind of really battled five years coming through a really big mold exposure that absolutely wrecked my brain and it's complex and that's

Starting point is 00:36:39 a thing right you go to a just a normal gp and say i don't feel right and they look at some of your biomarkers and they might be within normal ranges but you know you don't feel right so you need to dive deeper and when you start to look at genetics you can see okay genetics always risks potential if somebody has a lot of really high impact gene variants there's a higher likelihood that if their lifestyle is not in harmony with this they're probably going to get more kickback And when we look at high achievers, high performers, they're sleep poor, generally running on a lot of stress, not recovering well, often medicating with alcohol or other stimulants, drinking far too many coffees. So they're a high risk candidate for kickback. And this is what we look at in genetics.

Starting point is 00:37:34 We're not trying to diagnose a disease. i'm trying to look for vulnerabilities so that you're aware of and then you're informed and empowered to go and support these regularly yeah you might have a few off days where you miss the support but if you start to support it most of the time doesn't need to be perfect most of the time you're going to be in a far greater position long term than just not identifying these and then hoping that your your system can just yeah remain balanced but unfortunately we're so burnt out and stretching um with our careers and and not even careers just being parents and and in relationships like anyone that has children knows the demands of being a mom and a dad and

Starting point is 00:38:20 all the sport and school drop-offs and pick-ups and then just caring to the food and everything it's it's stressful and then you throw a high demanding career into that mix as well that we we need more support and that's why i love the the work that i i focus in because i look at ways to increase the energy mitigate the stress support the systems that help with repair and recovery yeah yeah that's absolutely spot on there uh the sort of staying with the stress piece at the moment because it sort of senses to me like it's like pouring pouring acid on a situation to some some degree as a result of how we're responding to things are there any how can the the sort of our gene makeup actually predispose us to the anxiety

Starting point is 00:39:15 stress and and sometimes depression-like symptoms that flow out of that i often talk at keynotes and i'm actually talking at a conference this year which is the international mental health conference on mental health genes. And there's a number of key genes that distinctly influence our stress response. And if we have variants on these, they can make us more susceptible to imbalances in resilience. We just get more affected by stress. And if we're under chronic prolonged stress, it gets even worse. And the thing is, if you carry these variants on genes like there's one called BDNF or COMT, which deals with how we clear adrenaline out of our system. Stress actually slows these genes down further. So if you're already coding low and then you're

Starting point is 00:40:07 just chronically stressed, they function worse. And then you have less emotional resilience, up and down emotions, and sometimes just less ability to repair the brain from stressful events and then you kind of see like the the common burnout model in people where they're just frazzled and fried and just they're not happy right like it's hard hard to be really um up when when you're so mentally just burnt out and many gene pathways play a big role in that but they can be supported once you know that you carry these there's a lot of things from a diet lifestyle perspective that you can just balance them better yeah okay now brilliant so sort of returning to the the property investor focus for for a lot of our audience today chris so

Starting point is 00:41:00 how does stress and fatigue show up in in the likely property behaviors i'm talking about fomo or fear of missing out over analysis perfectionism panic selling or or or over analyzing and never buying. Can you put some sort of context around that for us? I can imagine in that scenario that if somebody is running really high on dopamine or adrenaline and stress hormones, that they're going to run the risk of being one, less resilient to make really informed decisions. We tend to make erratic decisions when we're under a lot of stress. We don't see the bigger picture, the potential, or just the plan B. It's always, okay, this crisis happened. This is the only way that I can see that we can get out of this. When

Starting point is 00:41:54 you're in a really calm, collected, focused, balanced perspective, you can see many options or better options. So I would encourage most people that are dealing with really high pressure situations to come from in a position of resilience and not being kind of overflowing with stress hormones. And you'll make better decisions and more informed decisions and just be able to see better outcomes. Yeah. Okay. So flipping the lid on that a little bit, if an investor could fix one thing to improve their decision quality and long-term holding power, what would it be in the context of the work that you do? Reverse their biological age.

Starting point is 00:42:46 Yeah. We know that, and this is based on studies that entrepreneurs that have reversed their biological age. So biological age is the age that your cells behave. It's not your chronological age. And we can do this through all the diet and lifestyle interventions that we've discussed and we will discuss, but they were shown to have 20% to 30% better overall stress resilience scores and better decision-making in stressful situations. So slow down the aging process by

Starting point is 00:43:19 focusing on your health on a daily basis, and you'll have better decision-making and less stress. Yeah, I love that. So for someone who's time poor, and that's probably going to be most people listening in. What's the non-negotiable three improvements that you'd start with in that context? Start your day getting up. Don't hit snooze. Get out and get some natural light. First thing in the morning, look up at the sun, get some natural light, move your body. This is powerful for activating so many of your cellular processes and your hormonal um, synchronicity, uh, hormonal balance within your body, uh, and then start your day with enough protein. So aiming for 20 to 30 grams of protein in that morning is going to, uh,

Starting point is 00:44:12 balance your blood sugars. It's going to help build the right brain chemistry to make great decisions during the day. So all of your neurotransmitters, your dopamine, your serotonin come from protein amino acids so starting your day with that is going to give you brain fuel and move your body daily so make sure that you're doing some form of exercise it doesn't need to be high intensity an hour of training it can be going for a walk in the morning it can be jumping on a rebounder in your living room for a few minutes just to get your blood flowing and and the beauty of doing that first thing in the morning it's going to spike your your morning cortisol, which many busy professionals have low cortisol because they're

Starting point is 00:44:53 burnt out or they've got HBA access dysfunction because of so much stress. Boosting that in the morning is going to help them feel more alert and make better decisions from the get-go as well. Yeah, love that. Again, flip side, what are the biggest silent sabotages that you've seen? You've touched on a few of them already, but just to bring that to a head side, people listening going, oh gee i haven't thought about that yeah not not getting enough sleep yeah uh not disconnecting from like work in the evening going to bed on their phones or still dealing with that you need to have a good period of time before you go to bed so your mind isn't active when you're trying to go to sleep because i see it so often in people that are working up until eight o'clock

Starting point is 00:45:38 and then they go to bed and they're like i can't go to sleep i'm like because you're still running high on dopamine and stress hormones we need to blunt that at night so that's a wind down ritual starting to do some calming activities at night drinking drinking too much alcohol we know that it's a toxin for the body it speeds up the aging process and it's very inflammatory on the body so that's one thing that's going to affect a lot of the systems in the body yep and yeah the flow on from that as well because it's related to our cultural degree is that the carb sugar routine because the carbs end up the sugar anyway pretty much as you would know far better than I. Talk to us about that a little bit because I think again a lot of people just don't recognize the poisonous

Starting point is 00:46:28 power of sugar in that context. Carbs inherently aren't bad but the type of carbs we're talking about and i think what you're relating to is the really simple refined sugars the the the processed sugars the it can be it can be breads white breads it can be too many grains breakfast cereals these types of and also drinking like even too much fruit juice high sugar is going to spike your blood sugar spike your insulin and these are very pro-inflammatory processes within the body and we know that cognitive decline risk is very linked to insulin blood sugar metabolism we see so many people getting fatty liver these days not from alcohol but from too much sugar in the diet so really important it's fine to eat carbohydrates just make sure they're the right type real whole

Starting point is 00:47:24 foods slow release carbs hard to overeat fibrous salads and veggies and beans and legumes and And even sweet potatoes and potatoes are fine when they're balanced with good, just think whole real food. If it's packaged and refined and sugar, probably not going to be great for your health span, not going to be great for your stress if you're already a highly stressed person and then you're having a lot of sugar because you're running, you're feeling flat, you're low, which is a common thing, right? It's either coffee or sugar that most busy professionals reach for because their neurotransmitters

Starting point is 00:47:58 are low because they're running low on dopamine and stress hormones and they're either going for coffee a third or fourth coffee a day further depleting themselves or they're going simple sugars to get a quick win because yeah you do feel good for a second but then you're going to crash harder and it's a snowballing effect and then you put on more weight and then that excess weight makes you more inflamed because that's what happens and then yeah it's it's a then everything you look at just puts weight on your right because so metabolic metabolic flexibility is is crucial for good overall longevity and health span so we need to yeah eat well move the body well keep plenty of muscle mass on our body and that's going to keep you yeah fit and strong

Starting point is 00:48:43 hopefully for a long time yeah there's a lot of uh reinforcing mechanisms here either way from what what uh you're sharing with us so and you know sort of coming back to where you come into the picture but a lot of people going on i do where do i start with this what's the minimum effective testing roadmap in terms of what you do first second and third so that uh those listening in saying gee i need to do something about this don't get too overwhelmed i love that term minimal effective dose because i i love that what's the minimum we can do to get the most outcome and i always steer people if you're really looking to get serious about your health and you want to step things up

Starting point is 00:49:26 and you want to know yourself better than you ever have, then getting a comprehensive genetic panel is such a smart way to do it because it's based on your variants. It's going to teach you how to eat that's more in line with your genetic needs. It's going to help you understand what micronutrients you might be high risk of deficiency at.

Starting point is 00:49:44 It'll teach you if you've got potential learning issues, stress, depression issues, and then, okay, are you more vulnerable to things that can affect how long and well you're going to live. And that's all the longevity genes and mitochondria energy-based genes that you can start supporting them. It's such a smart place to start. And it's something that I think the awareness is definitely growing because I've had only recently, like a mum jump on and buy a genetic test for her and her 12-month-old baby. So there's all

Starting point is 00:50:20 really conscientious parents that are going, this is stuff I want to know now. Why isn't every australian given this at birth right here you go you're more susceptible to dairy uh gluten intolerances we're not going to eat that type of food you need to stay away from these synthetic vitamins you might be a little bit more prone to anxiousness let's support those now it's just yeah that's where i'd start people because it it it's a segue to everything else you want to do like then you can go and test some additional bloods to see okay i know i'm high risk here what's playing out in real life in my bloods i'm deficient in vitamin d i know i need that for immune function uh so yeah that's where i'd start yeah i love it i love it it really does

Starting point is 00:51:04 give you a roadmap of who you are and therefore you know what to drive and what fuel to put in and and how to service the car to make sure that you're going optimally yeah i mean you you are the living example of health uh yourself mate you've got a radiance uh about you do you mind sharing us your chronological and your biological age and, as a living example, what you do to respond to your particular physiology and how that works for you? Thank you for that kind comment. I'm a really unique example of this as well. My chronological age is 44.

Starting point is 00:51:47 Yep. And the last biological age test that I did, I was showing that my cellular age was 50. Okay. And this is really not uncommon, but it was a really distinct snapshot of the way I was feeling. And I mentioned like five years of chronic inflammatory, a lot of stress from mold exposure and just a lifestyle of running businesses, but also having to make a lot of financial decisions around business.

Starting point is 00:52:21 I had to close a business down because it wasn't performing and then you're dealing with that as well. So it didn't surprise me, but positively my pace of aging, which was another measurement that we do, which is more of a speedometer of your aging, a more immediate snapshot of kind of where you're aging was 0.89. So for every calendar year, you want to be white or below. So I was aging more youthfully, but the biological age estimate

Starting point is 00:52:52 was a snapshot of everything that I'd endured up until that point. So I'm, yeah, I'm confident, like I haven't retested it and I'm going to retest it after 12 months of being free from mold exposure and just working on these healing protocols. But I can tell you from a, uh, uh, a position of how I feel, I feel worlds apart. Like the brain fog has subsided. I feel far more energetic. Uh, I look healthier.

Starting point is 00:53:22 Like during that. There's a vibrancy that, that, that comes across on, on screen, mate. So you, and you, you can't make that stuff up. It emanates from your, from the, the, uh, core of yourselves. So whatever you're doing, you're clearly doing it right. and I think it'll be quite revealing when you do retest. You'll probably, well, maybe you're not surprised because you're dealing with this all the time,

Starting point is 00:53:45 but I probably would be. So, no, I'd love that. Before we sort of bring things to a close then, I always like to ask this question. What's the one question that you wish people would ask you and how would you answer that? why genetic testing isn't as common as routine bloods yeah and then the way i would answer it is i well i personally believe that genetic testing should be more commonly run than

Starting point is 00:54:26 than bloods in a sense for getting a foundation i think everyone as i mentioned before should have this information from such a young age because it it gives a wonderful snapshot or as you mentioned blueprint for so many aspects of our health and thriving and then we should use bloods to check in and make sure that we're we're not out of range in those but the awareness just hasn't been there and when i started in this space five years ago it was a really hard conversation to have with so many people when i would talk about it it would be just yeah it wasn't wasn't there it's emerging bushy and i think it's great but i i do and i see this so much in in the mental health and emotional well-being space that i i i seem to gravitate more to now because it is

Starting point is 00:55:17 a root of a lot of the dysfunction that a lot of people have. It's not the only cause. There's a lot of trauma and issues that also play a role in that. And then there's also a lot of other things like brain inflammation through exposure and gut issues. But there's a lot of genetic aspects that directly influence our emotional resilience and our risk for anxiousness and depression and things like that. If everyone had this information from a young age, I think our health would shift considerably. And sometimes blood's misinterpreted as being fine when they're not fine as well, or they're an immediate snapshot of when you go in there and then when you're out of there, they're different. You may have eaten a fatty meal or taken some

Starting point is 00:56:08 vitamins and they're like, oh yeah, they're normal. Six hours later, you're not normal. Well, and the other thing too is I've found, because I've been deep diving on this subject myself, is the acceptable ranges are based on the average human. And if the average human's unhealthy, then that's not really an acceptable range at all. So we're probably benchmarking against the wrong things at times when we're starting to look at this.

Starting point is 00:56:28 So I might be acceptable to the GP because he goes, oh, yeah, that's in the normal range. But there's actually stuff going on there. When I had my Hashimoto's diagnosed, I was on the, just on the threshold in terms of the, the, uh, T4 and T3. But when I talked to someone who really knew about it, it's like, well, yeah, it might be just threshold, but there's an, there's an issue here. That's why you're feeling, uh, sluggish.

Starting point is 00:56:51 You're putting on weight. There's all of these things that were directly, and I was putting it down to other things, but, uh, I found that really interesting, mate. Uh, look, uh, we've only really just scratched the surface. Uh, it's been an awesome conversation, uh, Chris, uh, and it's one of those rare conversations and not just interesting it's actually critical important even if there's still a lot of people who don't realize it yet uh and because uh you've taken something that you've really uh can feel intimidating to people like that you know when we start talking about

Starting point is 00:57:23 genes and epigenetics and biology uh but you've you've made it really human practical and actual and i'd really appreciate you taking the time to do that and you and you've reminded us of something very simple i think and that is that most people don't need more motivation they just need more precision about what's important to them. So we don't need to keep trying harder. We just need to try a little bit smarter. So now I want to quickly give you a blindfold and a cigarette and hit you with what I call the bushfire lightning round, which is just four fast questions, Chris. So we want some short, sharp answers, and I'm going to give you a cheeky disclaimer and a one nervous laugh as part of that. So we're jumping in. What's the most overlooked

Starting point is 00:58:03 risk to a high achiever's health span? Not getting their genetics tested. Their genetics tested would be one of the biggest risks because they're flying blind. They're following protocols that may actually be not in line with what they need. And I see this in people following certain diets, carnivore diet for example or keto diet and they carry variants which could actually make them more susceptible to cardiovascular disease or cognitive decline so yeah lack of lack of knowledge and clarity with their true health love that uh switching gears a little bit what's the most underrated habit for reducing stress and improving performance meditation yep yep and sleep's in there as well i think to some degree it would just powerful enough effort into sleep

Starting point is 00:58:59 you know powerful going to bed at the same same time getting up the same time yeah enough duration and whatnot yeah love that uh what's one red flag sign that our body is aching faster than it shouldn't fatigue yeah yeah fatigue fatigue uh especially if if it's really chronic and you're doing a lot of things could signal that the the energy centers in your cells your mitochondria are actually dysfunctional and that's that's a driver of aging as well uh so yeah chronic fatigue yeah love that one and finally number four uh if we remember just one sentence from what you shared with us today what should it be don't wait for your health to fall apart before you start taking action on improving it start today yeah i love that i love it but the whole concept of

Starting point is 00:59:51 preventative health is still something that i just don't think gets enough attention and it goes back to what you've been sharing if we we got our blueprint done early enough then we've got something that we're managing it against it's the old you know you can't measure what we what we don't measure so uh love that uh uh sort of for everyone who's resonated with what you shared like i have today yeah what's your suggested seven day challenge that they can start on monday then chris they can they can go across i've actually just built a school community where listeners can go and join for free and it's going to unpack everything that we've just spoken about there tells you all about genes and gene variants and how to to do genetic testing how to do it on a

Starting point is 01:00:34 budget, right through to everything that's going to help you have more energy and sleep better and have just a more profound purpose and impact with your health and with your careers as well. So that's the school community. I would tell people to go and get started on that. In that is a 21-day health challenge that they can get started as well, which is going to take them through a full journey of just so many different approaches to optimize their health no matter where they're at as well i love it and then and i'm gonna it'll be in the show

Starting point is 01:01:08 notes and we'll have the links in the show notes obviously but school is s-k-double-o-l not f-c-h correct so for those that are tapping with us can you can you uh share the special bonus that you're offering uh get invested freedom fighter listeners uh today mate certainly can uh any of the listeners that would like to dive deeper and understand the power of identifying your unique Genetic Blueprint. They can jump on and order a test today and receive 10% off that test and full consultation with me. Yeah, brilliant. Awesome, mate. We'll encourage everyone to do that because the baseline is the starting point for really getting clear on where you're heading and what you need to be doing about it. Final question, Chris, if I ask you to get invested,

Starting point is 01:01:53 What does that mean for you? To step up and take full ownership for your health now. So to invest and to know that just like you would invest in your wealth creation, investing in your health today is actually going to pay dividends both in short term and long term as well. Because you know that the quality of your later years is determined by the things that you're doing now to support your health. And we see that and we see it in everything that we measure.

Starting point is 01:02:23 and in the people that are in their 70s and 80s that are fit and thriving compared to the ones that don't do it. Yeah, love that. Been an awesome conversation, Chris. I'd love to get you back at some point to dive in a bit deeper into some of the areas that we only really had a chance to touch on today. But before we close, for everyone listening, I want to leave you with some final food for thought. As investors, we inspect properties before we buy them, but most of us never inspect ourselves until something breakers so here's a thought don't wait for a breakdown to do a baseline because compounding works only if you stay in the game and i also want to share a quote of the week clarity is kindness meaning when you get clear on what your body needs you

Starting point is 01:03:12 stop calling yourself lazy you stop calling yourself weak you stop performing through pain and fog and you start making choices that actually fit you so clarity is kindness because it removes the shame and also remember that you don't get wealthy by making more money you get wealthy by staying in the game meaning that stress burnout and poor health are forced exit events they wreck compounding relationships and decision quality so if your health span doesn't match your wealth plan you're building a shiny car with no engine and here's a couple of takeaways takeaway one pick one health signal you've normalized and admits it's a signal not a personality trait number two book one baseline test today like your blood pressure your blood work or your sleep tracking

Starting point is 01:03:59 and stop flying blind three choose one tiny habit that supports your nervous system like 10 minutes of walking without your phone or a hard bedtime boundary or morning sunlight that Chris spoke about or breath practice or a caffeine cutoff because small hinges swing big doors. Then set one boundary by removing your biggest aging accelerator like late night screens, your sugar habit or your alcohol frequency. And if you want to go deeper, here's another takeaway. Explore your blueprint with support because test don't guess isn't a slogan it's a strategy and if you resounded with chris like i have first click on chris's links in the show notes to get access to his genetic test kits coaching options in his community and second make sure you take advantage of that

Starting point is 01:04:48 special offer by jumping on to school.com forward slash chris barnes wellness 8200 again link in the show notes, and use that code GETINVESTED to get 10% off genetic testing, plus a seven-day free trial of his school community. No pressure, just tools, because your health shouldn't be a mystery novel when you read at 60. So if you got value out of today, do a friend a favor and share the episode with the one person you know who is fine, but clearly fried. And finally, if you're enjoying Get Invested, please follow the show, lead a review, and keep building your version of sustainable success. Now, as we close, treat our conversation with Chris as your bridge to take you from intention to inspection, from hope to clarity, because the goal isn't just a bigger portfolio,

Starting point is 01:05:37 it's a bigger life. And you need to do that by integrating yourself, your health, and your wealth as three interdependent rings. So Freedom Fighters, whatever you're building, build it in a way that your body can enjoy, because your portfolio can't go for a walk on the beach. You need to stay healthy enough to enjoy the living. So Chris, thanks again. And until next time, remember to always, always get invested in yourself before you invest in anything else. Thanks, Bushy. Thanks for tuning in to Get Invested on the Property Hub podcast channel, your home for property investment insights and inspiration. Make sure you subscribe to Property

Starting point is 01:06:16 Hub for free. Get your weekly dose of Get Invested inspiration along with every episode of Realty Talk, Australia's top online property show for red-hot property investing news and insights direct from industry leaders and influencers. And finally, I'll see you next time.

Property Hub - Investment Insights & Inspiration - Get Invested: Chris Barnes on the missing link between high performance and financial freedom

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